Goddess Alive!

Many of the great Minoan* centres of Crete are well known and much visited by Goddess lovers. The so-called ‘Palaces’ (or to be more accurate, Temple sites) of Knossos, Phaistos and Malia are popular and on many visitor trails, and even lesser-known post-Palatial shrines like Gournia and Ayia Triada have received much more attention in recent years. However, as we were to discover when we stayed in remote south-eastern Crete recently, there are many other fascinating smaller Minoan sites, hardly known or visited at all, where you can get a wonderful sense of the Goddess-celebrating people who lived and worshipped there and connect deeply with their spirit.

Much of Northern Crete has been blighted by the ravages of mass tourism in recent years, especially in the areas to the east and west of Heraklion, the prime example being the ‘lager-lout’ town of Ayios Nikolaos. With their ‘English pub’ and Guided Tours mentality, it is hard to get any sense of the ancient Minoan Goddess of the Land in these places. But travel to the far north-west or south of the island, as we did recently, and you discover a different world entirely. Here wild mountain ranges look down over small coves and beaches, and Minoan Goddess sites nestle in the mountain peaks or in the slopes of the hills, little-visited except for those determined to seek them out. And what a rich reward they proved to be! This article gives some details of sites hardly known about at all, so that other Goddess-loving women nd men may discover them too.

We stayed for a few weeks in the harbour area of Makriyalos, which made a good centre for visiting this remote area of eastern Crete. Travelling west from Makriyalos, after 42km you come to the unspoilt village of Myrtos. At Nea Myrtos, about 2km east of the village before you get there, there are two remote Minoan sites on two hilltops, overlooking the sea. The first easterly one, Phournia Koryphi is the more difficult of access; the second one Pyrgos just before Myrtos itself, is easier to find. It is signposted off the main road, and there is a lay-by for parking. Whitewashed stones mark a path that climbs the steep hillside, but the views at the top alone make it worthwhile. It is very close to the sea, and there is a wonderful panorama on one side of the whole coastline, and on the other of the mountain ranges.

We arrived in the heat of the day, but fortunately there was a cool breeze to make it tolerable. The site was an early Minoan I I settlement (2500-2000 BCE) which was destroyed by fire, but then rebuilt in the Middle Minoan and Late Minoan I periods (about 1900-1600 BCE). It then consisted of an elegant house with two or possibly three storeys the remains of the lower one being visible today. With the aid of a site plan from the Blue Guide to Crete we tried to make sense of the layout, which included a paved courtyard, a raised walk, a verandah, various rooms and a household shrine. Amongst the finds from this were clay sealings, 4 clay tubular stands for offerings, and a conch shell of pink faience, doubtless a treasured offering to the Goddess on Her altar.

There were some very beautiful features in the visible remains, including a paving of purple limestone stones. Outside the house were the remains of a two-storey communial tomb, and the whole place had the feel of a settled and peace-loving people, at one with the Goddess in their hilltop sanctuary by the sea and overlooked by the mountains.

After this visit, and an afternoon on the beach at Myrtos to cool off, we ventured back in the cooler evening to the other Minoan hilltop site at Phournou Koryphi. This too is signposted from the main road, but there is no obvious turning leading to it. The most direct way is to park in a small lay-by beside the main road by a gulley, and then scramble like a mountain goat up the sheer side of the gulley itself - not for the faint-hearted! With care however, the site soon comes into view. Our Blue Guide said it was fenced in and locked, and had very little information on the site itself, so we were not expecting much. However, Fortuna shone on us, and we found the gate into the site unlocked, and there discovered another hilltop settlement, intervisible with Pyrgos that we had visited earlier in the day.

The two sites would originally have been contemporary, from the early Minoan II period (2500-2000 BCE), but Phournou Koryphi was also destroyed by fire (perhaps as a result of the eruption of the volcanic island Thera), and, unlike Pyrgos, not rebuilt.

So the remains date from the earlier period, and consist of 90-100 small interlinked rooms. Finds included equipment for weaving and pottery, and for making wine and olive oil. What amazed us was what a wealth of original artefacts had still been left on the site ‘in situ’ (which presumably is why it is sometimes locked). We found pestle and mortars for grinding spices and herbs, decorated stones and a beautiful bowl and stone for refining other natural herbs. We both had a go with these utensils, and it brought us very close to our ‘grandmothers’ who lived and worked in this place, and perhaps sang songs to the Goddess as they worked with these very bowls and tools.

The amazing experience of using the same stones to grind grain that the women of this Minoan settlement had used themselves some 4,000 years ago.

We found what was probably this shrine room with its stone altar - and discovered someone had been there before us! An offering of coloured stones and pebbles had been placed on the altar, and it was exciting to think that perhaps other Goddess-celebrating people had been there to once again honour Her at her shrine. The site seemed to us so alive with the spirits of the people who had lived there, it was as if the last 4000 years had gone nowhere, and we kept half-expecting to see one of them coming around the corner with some grain for grinding, or with an offering for the Goddess at the shrine. As the sun set behind the mountains and twilight began to gather, we reluctantly said goodbye to our ancestors and left this powerful Goddess settlement.The next day, having spent a lazy day basking in the Cretan heat and cooling in the azure Libyan sea, we journeyed into the mountains late in the afternoon. Winding our way ever higher, the narrow, twisting road snaked its way past olive groves, terraced fields and hilltop villages. The higher we climbed, the more abundantly fertile the land appeared to become. We came at last to a dusty limestone track, which would take us the final two kilometres to the three-hilltop settlement and sacred C3rd BCE temple of Presos that we were seeking.

This is a fascinating site, for it appears that after the disasters that beset the Minoan people (eruption of Thera and invasion of the Myceneans) the remnants of that once-great civilisation retreated into this mountain fastness, where they constructed this first Eteocretan city. Here they preserved their language and culture into the Greek period, and have been considered as the first or original Cretans.

To find the site, we had little to go on - its location is only scantily and somewhat cryptically described in the Guidebooks, but following our instinct and intuition we arrived at the foot of the first of the three hills (called First Acropolis). We were immediately struck by the richness of the place, alive with bird song, the constant humming buzz of bees and a heady fragrance of many wild and flowering herbs. As we climbed over ancient stone terraces, the energy of the Sun, stored in the earth, radiated all around us. The welcome shade of an olive tree gave some respite as we reached the entrance to the remains of the sacred temple.

Many exotic creatures and unfamiliar plants inhabited this place: a snake, basking on the stones of the fallen ruins, slid away to ground as we approached; a lime-green spider hung motionless in the stillness of the air; a perfectly camouflaged cicada disguised herself amongst the yellowed grasses; and buzzards wheeled overhead.

Surrounded by the craggy ridges of the blue-grey mountains, we sat and talked of the ancient ones, and the relationship between what the first people saw and experienced here and the presence of the Goddess. We felt Her very strongly in the spiral pathways of the bees, the song of the birds, the healing properties of the herbs and the nourishment provided by the land, the waters and the living spirit of this sacred place. The stunning setting of the hills which greeted the people when they first arrived here must have been awe-inspiring - a rich, fertile land in which to establish a settlement, and a natural hilltop on which to honour the Goddess who blessed them with such abundance. Cradled in the shelter of the mountains, the hills formed an idyllic and magical homeland for them.

We sat for a long time speculating as to the actual layout of the three hills. There was a saddle between the two peaks where the ancient city stood, and on the second hill (Acropolis) houses were built into the slope. The third hill contained an altar with rock-cut steps, marking a sanctuary that had been in use from the C8th-5th BCE and later became a small temple.

We recognised and identified what we thought were the first two hills, but the third remained elusive, and we thought we would have to leave it, since we needed to return down the winding mountain roads before the light faded. But the Goddess had not yet revealed herself totally to us. In fact she took us on a figure-of-eight detour, higher up the mountain road to Nea Pressos, and then back by a different route to the site, where suddenly the whole picture fell into place, and we could clearly see the three hills.

The daylight was fading as we set off on our return journey, excited at our discoveries and delighting in the ways She had spoken to us. But She had not finished yet! As we left the mountain track and met with the main road, we looked back across to the silhouetted mountain range and there was the beautiful light of the full moon rising rapidly over the temple hill top. We stood in spontaneous ritual and in awe and reverence at Her beauty, thanking Her for all Her amazing gifts that we had experienced that day, once again connecting with the Goddess in this land where She had so long been honoured and celebrated for Her power and grace.

The next evening we were sitting in a Taverna at Makriyalos at the water’s edge having our evening meal, when suddenly the moon rose out of the sea, still very full and coloured a deep red. It was a most magical sight and we decided that once our meal was over we would go and celebrate Her. Our choice of site was the Minoan Villa that lay just up the road, 400 metres west of the harbour. We had visited the site earlier in the day, when we discovered that it had been constructed to a plan similar to the Minoan temple sites of Knossos, etc, though of course on a much smaller scale.

The site was readily accessible and open at all times, so we were able to walk up to it and have it all to ourselves for our ritual. Its location was beautiful, with two breast-shaped hills, directly visible from the site. We identified the room where there had been an altar and a bench shrine and set up for our ceremony there. It was incredible to be able to do a ritual to the Goddess at the very altar where the Minoan peoples had done their own rituals to Her! The wonderful thing about these Minoan sites is that we don’t have to speculate or wonder whether Goddess was celebrated there - we know for sure that She was.

“At this particular site (Makriyalos Villa) was discovered a remarkable sealstone, carved with a scene of a ship carrying an altar, flanked by a palm tree and an adoring female worshipper, suggesting marine associations for the Minoan goddess”. [Blue Guide to Crete]. This sealstone can now be seen in Agios Nikolaos Museum (Room III).

So, at this very altar, we placed our offerings of flowers, blessed each other with water infused by the light of the full moon, and gave thanks to Her, and celebrated Her, chanting “The Goddess is alive and magic is afoot”. It was indeed a most magical night and a magical place, so sacred to Her. This visit to Crete was proving to be an incredible and very deep experience for us - and more was to come!

Part 2

As well as the special Goddess sites in and around Makriyalos, that we wrote about in Part 1, the museums at Agios Nikolaos, Ierepetra and Sitia are also worth a visit. Although Heraklion Museum remains the greatest and most comprehensive museum of Goddess finds and artefacts in Crete, neverthe- less the small provincial museums also have their treasures, and are often more intimate, with some of the artefacts not contained in glass cases. For example, the museum at Irepetra has a 2nd CE Graeco-Roman marble statue of the Goddess Demeter (labelled "Perse- phone") with an ear of corn in her left hand and snakes in her hair, that you can reach out and touch. It also houses a fine collection of larnaxes, clay coffins from the Late Minoan III period (1440- 1050 BCE) on open access. These larnaxes were discovered buried under a village street in Episkopi, a small village north of Ierapetra, and are very well preserved. They are covered with symbols of the Goddess, such as spirals, chevrons, labryses, bull’s heads, deers and octopus figures, all painted in earthy red, black, blue and yellow ochre colours.

Near to Episkopi at Pano Chorio was found a Minoan settlement, that yielded a beautiful figurine of a seated Goddess, now in Heraklion Museum [see photograph].

The Ierapetra Museum also houses two fine larger (about 2ft high) Goddess figurines with upraised arms in a worshipping stance, one light-coloured and one dark, each with plaited snake- like hair. These came from the Late Minoan IIIc (1200-1100 BCE) shrine at Vronda, a site behind Kavouski on the Agios Nikolaos road, high in the Thryptian upland valley, involving a long and arduous walk by dirt track. Also from this site were found six nearly complete snake tubes and seven kalathoi (vases in the shape of a basket), one decorated with horns of consecration, and another with snakes modelled inside it. A cornucopia of Goddess iconography!

The museum at Sitia is larger with more exhibits behind glass cabinets, although it does have on open display more larnaxes and a huge pythos (storage vessel) with two beautiful double-axe carvings on its sides. These double-axe carvings had a shape at the top as well, making them look like butterfly or insect wings, and it made us wonder whether the double-axe motif had arisen out of insect icon-ography (epiphany of the Goddess) and then become more stylized. Double-axe carvings are found ubiquitously throughout Crete. Several rooms at Knossos have representations of them, and in two cave sanctuaries a wealth of double-axe carvings have been found.

These cave sanctuaries were at Psychro (the Dictaean cave on the Lasithi plateau) Gold double-axes

and Arkalokhori (to the west of the Dictaean cave). At Psycho tiny gold double axes were stuck into crevices of stalagmites and stalactites as offerings. Dr.Antonis sp.Vassilakis says: “At the beginning of the Prepalatial period it became a cult cave where the Mother Goddess was worshipped”. And in the cave of Prophitis Elias near Arkalokhori were found 26 exquisite double-axes of gold, 6 of silver and 19 of bronze. This was clearly a very sacred place to the Goddess.

In the glass cases in the Sitia Museum there were some more beautifully decorated pots, terracota figurines and two stylised Goddess figures from the on-going excavations at the sites of Petras and Ayia Photia, an early Minoan I - II necropolis with shaft graves and 250 chambered tombs which lie a few kilometres to the east of Sitia. There was also a delightful collection in the museum of votive terracottas, mainly small animals and fragments of Goddesses or women from the Minoan peak sanctuary shrine of Petsophas - and it was to there that we now headed.

The Minoan peak sanctuaries are especially found in eastern Crete, and lie high in the mountains. There is one at Traostalos on the Palekastro-Zakros road, and one near Xerakambos in the far south-eastern corner of the island, from whence came this figurine [left].

The one we wanted to visit, after having seen the delightful terracota figures in Sitia Museum, lay in the mountains to the east of Palekastro - in fact in the furthest east place in all of main Crete. After an afternoon relaxing on the palm-tree beach at Vai, we arrived in Palekastro in the early evening.

A signpost leading off the main road took us to the excavations at Rougolákos, a Middle Minoan III town and shrine near the beach. Miniature horns of consecration and two pyramidal double-axe stands have been found here, though the principal temple seems to have been later dedicated to the Dictaean Zeus. Clearly though, the town must have been placed there because of its relationship to the sacred hill lying above it.

So it was to the Goddess sanctuary on the hill of Petsophas above the town we were drawn. A wandering dirt track, waymarked by arrows led to a fence by the bottom of a low hill, but even then it was not obvious where the path was that led to the Sanctuary. After some tentative exploration of the various paths we could identify, we had to grasp the bull by the horns and take the steepest of them to our left and hope that it would eventually lead there.

We had done our homework on this area of Crete, inasmuch as anything much is published, it being very much a less exploited and less visited part of the island. We had found mention of this Peak sanctuary, but none of the authors of the guide books seem actually to have climbed up to the site, and as far as we are aware this is the first published account of it! So, we had no idea exactly how steep, arduous and exhausting a climb it was going to be to the summit of 215 metres/700 ft.

But it was well worth the ascent! The views over the bay of the Grandes Islands were superb, with the small islets of Grandes and the larger island of Elassa forming a stunning vista. We imagined the ancient Goddess/Giantess creatrix striding out across these islets as stepping stones on Her way to Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes!

Below us, a herd of goats, their bells jangling in the still evening air, made their way to a farmstead to be milked, and as we watched from the vantage of the steep hillside we could see the excavations of Rougolakos below. Life in this part of Crete has changed little over the centuries, and as we listened and watched, the spirit of the ancestors felt very near and present.

The ochre-surfaced, blue limestone rang hard underfoot as we scrambled and climbed ever higher. This distinctive blue stone must have made the place seem very apt as a sanctuary for the Goddess. After several points at which we felt we must surely be nearing the top, Goddess always calling us higher, the path veered off to the right and took us westward along a ridge. A lone-black goat stared at us from a rocky outcrop, no doubt wondering just who these strange people were here on her hilltop! Then after about an hour’s climb, we started to find pieces of beautiful purple stone and tell-tale fragments of pottery. At last we were there!

Ahead we could see a stone structure, the remains of the sanctuary walls, and all around the most stunning mountainous landscape, with two distant conical peaks forming a perfect horns of consecration shape. Archaeologists have found numerous figurines, especially of animals, buried under the floor of the shrine, and scattered all around were fragments of jars, handles and parts of circular bases. It was a powerful experience to imagine the priest(esses) and people from the city below looking up to Her shrine and then, as we had done, climbing the hillside path to give thanks and make offerings to Her. A rhyton (ornamental jug) found at Knossos depicts this actually happening.
Cheryl Straffon

A deep sense of peace, tranquility and well-being filled our spirits as we gazed upon the beauty of this place, the surrounding vistas, and the intensity of colour heightened by the evening sun. Our hearts swelled with love of the Goddess, and the Sanctuary echoed with our voices expressing our love and celebration of Her. Here was a connection between earth and sky, the spiritual and the physical, then and now - all was as one. We sat for a time on the floor of the shrine, a good and grounded feeling, and gently touched the rocks, soil, herbs and flowers that surrounded us there. The healing warmth of Her love was everywhere, and we felt totally at one with Her in Her peak sanctuary.

As the sun began to set over the mountains, we gathered ourselves together and started to make our way back along the ridge to start our descent. We both simultaneously received a gift from the Goddess as we left the Sanctuary - Cheryl found a piece of purple stone with a naturally-formed image of the Goddess within it, and Jackie a blooming purple flower. As the setting sun streamed golden, and then rose-coloured, lighting the tops of the crags all around us, Jackie saw Her face in the sculptured rocks of the mountain side. Was this the face that the ancients had seen? We bade farewell to this most magical of mountains, and gave thanks for our blessed and sacred meeting with the Goddess, touched by Her boundless love in such a sacred place, as pure and unsullied today as it had been all those thousands of years ago.

It was very hard to drag ourselves away from Petsophas, but we needed to find somewhere to stay for the night, so we drove on south down to the furthest south-eastern corner of the island at a place called Ano (upper) Zakros. We had come here for the finalé of our pilgrimage to the Goddess sites of eastern Crete - a whole palace or temple complex dedicated to the Goddess.

Zakros temple site The so-called ‘palace’ (or to be more accurate temple) sites of Knossos, Phaistos and Malia on Crete are well-known and much visited. But Zakros, perhaps because of its relative inaccessibility, is much less known. Although the smallest of the sites, it is nevertheless one of the most beautiful, and has a much more intimate and personal feel to it. The most ancient and powerful way of arriving at the site is by the gorge that runs all the way down through the mountains from outside Ano Zakros to Kato (lower) Zakros, emerging on the plains where the Temple itself stood. So, in the relative cool of the early morning, Jackie set off from the upper town in the footsteps of the ancestors who had walked this way.

The gorge is called in Greek ‘Pharange ton Nekron’, “the Gorge of the Dead”, in recognition of its use in Early & Middle Minoan times for the burying of the dead in caves in there. So it was that walking down the gorge towards the temple site became a journey through time. The track made its way down through the narrow and soaring canyon, following the riverbed as it went. The base of the canyon was full of vegetation, especially wild herbs such as bitter laurel, oregano, sage and savoury, while above in the numerous caves dotting the canyon walls, lay the ancient burial sites. The stillness of the journey and the rising heat of the day made it seem as if the past and the present were all as one, the dead and the living all part of the same continuum that spanned 4000 years of time. At the bottom of the gorge, the path levelled out, and Jackie was met by Cheryl, who had selflessly offered to drive the car down the hairpin bends to Kato Zakros and the temple site!

Zakros dates from the Late Minoan I period (around 1600 BCE), and consisted of a thriving town to the north and west of the palace or temple area. This site had some 250-300 rooms in two, or possibly three, storeys, all built around a huge central courtyard. Excavations have revealed remains of an earlier palace or temple, so it must have grown up during the early & middle Minoan periods, when the dead were being buried in the gorge above the site. In about 1450 BCE it experienced a sudden and drastic catastrophe, whichmay have been the result of an earthquake or perhaps linked to the great eruption of the volcano Thera and the resulting tsunami and fall-out of ash. In either case, the site was abandoned and then destroyed, but its contents remained intact and unplundered.

It was first excavated in 1901, and then subsequently in 1962, and a rich array of objects were found, including copper from Cyprus, ivory from Syria, and gold, alabaster, basalt and diorite from Egypt. A paved way led from the site to the harbour nearby, and Zakros was obviously a major port and trading centre in Minoan times. Over 10,000 individual items were found, including beautifully decorated pots and jugs, ivory and gold figurines, an exquisite rock crystal vase, bronze double axes and a stone bull’s head, all now in Heraklion and Sitia Museums. One special rhyton (ritual drinking vessel) depicted a mountain shrine scene with wild goats, altars and horns of consecration [Room VIII Heraklion Mus.]

It was fascinating to wander among the houses and rooms of the town and get a sense of the people who lived and worked here, and then to explore the palace temple site, with its central courtyard surrounded by buildings with labyrinthine corridors, apartments storerooms workshops and a shrine room.

In the central courtyard stood a flat stone, identified by the excavators as an altar stone, and it was to this stone that we were drawn. There was virtually no-one else at the site while we were there so we had the altar all to ourselves, and there placed an appropriately shaped stone in honour of the Goddess. She had been with us for all of us stay in eastern Crete, showing us places about which we knew very little, revealing Her sites and Herself to us in beautiful and sometimes unexpectedways. She had led us ever deeper into an understanding and appreciation of Her powerful presence in this sacred land, both in the past for the Minoan people, and still alive for us today.

FROM SACRED CAVE TO MOUNTAIN SHRINE

Travels with the Goddess in Eastern Central Crete Part 1

In the two previous articles Jackie Dash and I wrote about lesser-known Goddess sites in the area of Eastern Crete. As a follow-up, this 2-part article features a 2 to 3 day Goddess pilgrimage around the area of Eastern Central Crete, made in the Summer of 2005 by Teresa Durrant and I. We went in search of Minoan sites of all kinds, including houses, settlements, towns, caves, 'palaces', temples and tholoses (burial sites). With the exception of Knossos and Gournia, we concentrated mainly on lesser-known places, where we were usually the only visitors and had the sites to ourselves.¹ It was a deep and moving connection with the ancient Minoan people, their way of life and their love of the sacred, particularly the Goddess.

We started the odyssey from Irepetra in the SE of the island (though one could join it at any point along the circular route), and took the road that leads north towards Agios Nikolaos. After passing through Kato Horio we turned off the road westwards to the small village of Vasiliki. On the outskirts of the village is the site of a small Minoan village dating from the Pre-palatial period of Early Minoan II (2900-2300 BCE), consisting of two separate buildings, named by the archaeologists West House and Red House (from the hard red lime plaster used in the construction of the walls).

Here was a good place to begin our quest, for this site was an early Minoan dwelling at the beginning of the civilisation that was to later flower and blossom so magnificently, and which contained in embryonic form many of the features that were later to become so widespread. These included: a paved courtyard area; multi-storied dwelling rooms with basements; and the craft work employed, such as pottery production (five sherds decorated with dolphins were found here, presaging the wall paintings at Knossos), wool working and the processing of grain. We made simple offerings to the Goddess here and asked for Her blessing on our quest.

Moving on, we returned to the main road which shortly joined the road from Sitia heading westwards towards Agios Nikolaos. Very soon we came to the major town Approaching Gournia from the road

site of Gournia, which is open to the public and lies just beside the road overlooking a sheltered cove of the bay of Mirabello. The earliest part of the site, dating from the Middle Minoan period (1900-1700 BCE) lies on top of the hill, with the houses spiralling down the hillside (originally down to where the harbour had been) from the Middle & Late Minoan periods. The pattern is thus the reverse of the Palace/Temple site of Zakros (where houses run down the hillside to the sacred area in the plain below), but in other respects it does resemble Zakros and other Palace/Temple sites. For example, Gournia also has a public courtyard area, palatial quarters and a cult area where bull leaping may have taken place (fragments of stylized bulls' horns were found there).

There was a ritual area with a sacred stone near to a stone kernos (a cult vessel with a number of small receptacles) and a double-axe mason's mark, and a cobbled 'via sacra' leading to a shrine room. It was to there that we walked and soon found the small room with its altar bench. In this room were found a wealth of Goddess artifacts, including Goddesses with raised arms and bell-shaped skirts [see front cover picture], clay tubes with snakes modelled in relief, a sherd with a double axe in relief, and bird figurines and serpents heads in terracotta - an abundant cornucopia of Goddess gifts! All these are now in the Heraklion Museum, but we placed our own figurines and offerings on the altar bench and once again gave thanks and honoured Her at Her special place. It was a good feeling to know that many hundreds of years of love for the Goddess here could be continued and re-awakened by Goddess-celebrating women today.

As we were leaving the shrine room we noticed that it aligned perfectly on to two low breast-shaped hills nearby, and we smiled a smile of recognition to ourselves!²

The road now led on to Agios Nikolaos, which has a Museum that houses a number of Goddess figurines, pottery and jewellery from sites in the east of Crete, including: the beautiful Goddess of Myrtos (from Phournia Koryphi); votive offerings from Peak Sanctuaries (including exquisite double horns of consecration from Petsophas); a sealstone, showing a Goddess worshipper, from Makriyalos; a large clay figurine of a Goddess with upraised arms from Kefala Vasilikis; and [below] a priestess in worship (from the Post-palatial cemetery at Myrsini).

North of Agios Nikolaos on the coast at Malia lies an important Palace/Temple site, that really requires a whole article in itself. It has all the features of the other major Palace/Temple sites such as Knossos, Phaestos and Zakros, with some interesting individual aspects of its own. For example, there was a shrine room and a room for Temple repositories, whose pillars were carved with double axes. And a circular limestone table was found with a hollow in its centre and 34 smaller ones around the circumference. Archaeologists think it may have played a part as a table for offerings in rituals associated with the Harvest Goddess, celebrating the first fruits of the harvest or the fertility of the seed.

It is easy to see why the Minoans honoured the Goddess in this way in this most fertile of islands. Today a huge variety of fruits and vegetables and grains are grown everywhere in ways that probably have changed little since those ancient times. Tomatoes and peppers are left out to ripen in the noonday sun; trees stand heavy with oranges, tangerines and lemons on their boughs; juicy and sweet melons and peaches are grown throughout this part of Crete and taste so luxuriant and intensely flavoursome; grapes and raisins can be found on trees and bushes in orchards just waiting to be picked. The land and its animals gives gifts of bread, olives, feta cheese, vegetables of all kinds, and the sweet honey of the bees. Wherever we walked we could smell the fragrant herbs - basil, thyme, oregano, mint - wafting in the air, and in the evenings ate our fill of it all. No wonder the Minoans loved and adored the Goddess who gave them all of this.

Our journey now led us away westwards from Agios Nikolaos and up into the high mountains of the Lassithi range, travelling through remote Cretan villages and finally descending to the famed Lassithi plateau. We had come here to look for an early cave shrine at Tzermiado called the Trapeza or Kronio Cave. The cave was first used in the late Neolithic period (c4000 BCE) and then continued in use for communal burials throughout the Minoan period. A large quantity of grave goods has been discovered here from the early Minoan II period (2900-2300 BCE), including sealstones, rings and other jewellery, figurines, metalwork, stone vases and a glazed steatite scarab.

The cave is watched over by a guardian from the local village, and after we had climbed the steep path to the site, he appeared with some torches and led us into the dark cavern, a dramatic contrast to the intense heat and light of the summer afternoon outside. Pointing out the niches in the rocks where the dead had been laid to rest and the offerings made, he seemed to us a gentle and respectful descendant of those Minoan peoples who had come here to bury and honour their dead. This was reinforced afterwards when he asked us to wait, and, disappearing into a local orchard, returned with flowers and cherries for us picked straight off the vine. It was a touching reminder of the hospitality of old Crete and perhaps not that far removed from the notion of gifts freely given to the living and the dead in ancient times.

From Tzermiodo we descended down towards the coastal plain that is the hinterland of Heraklion, and headed towards the second of the caves on our pilgrimage, the sacred cave of Skoteino It was getting rather late in the day when we arrived, and knowing that the site was fenced with a guardian, we did not hold out much hope that it would be accessible that day. But when we got there we found, much to our surprise, that the locked gate had been left open and there was no-one there to impinge on our experience of the place. It was as if the Goddess had been expecting our arrival and had arranged things accordingly!

In contrast to the small and intimate cave of Trapeza, Skoteino is a huge cavern of four different levels, that was one of the most important sanctuary sites on Crete throughout antiquity. From the Middle Minoan period onwards (c.2000 BCE) people have come to this site to worship and celebrate the Goddess. Finds include four votive offerings of males in poses of characteristic salutation to the Goddess. Continuity of belief up to the present day is shown by a small Christian church built near the mouth of the cave.

Carol Christ³ says of this site: "It is hard to imagine that people did not enact rituals in the caves' shadowy depths. When people moved out of the caves, they continued to bring the dead there, no doubt feeling that they were returning them to the womb of the mother. Later still, people brought votive offerings. Called by archaeologists 'simple gifts to the deity of fertility', they also express a complex sense of the connection between the womb of earth; the understanding that all life comes forth from the darkness; and perhaps also the hope that what is dead - seeds, human bones, the human heart - can be transformed and reborn in the darkness."

We descended into the cave, accompanied by the cooing of doves that nested there, to be met by a huge cavern with a large rock formation resembling a giantess. Behind her a rough path descended to the second level with another stalagmite, sometimes identified as the Cretan Goddess Vritomatis. A slithering over rocks brought us to the third level, where the light from the entrance had all but disappeared, and we gazed into a large black hole that was the entrance to the fourth and final level, the very heart of darkness itself. We began to softly chant:

Ancient Mother, I hear you calling;
Ancient Mother, I feel your womb;
Ancient Mother, I love your darkness;
Ancient Mother, I am reborn.

- and our voices echoed back to us from the Cave of the Mother.

When we emerged from the cave it felt as if we had been in another reality, an altered state of consciousness, and it was hard to adapt to the everyday world outside. There are a number of sacred caves in Crete which are known to have been visited in ancient times for rites of the dead and offerings to the Goddess. For example, south of the Trapeza cave mentioned above, is the Psychro or Diktian Cave I had previously visited, where a plethora of tiny gold double axes had been stuck into crevices in the rock. And closer to Heraklion at Amnisos is the Eilitheia Cave (now locked) which was dedicated to the Goddess of childbirth and contains two stalagmites, who were worshipped as the Mother seated and the Daughter standing, until their heads were chopped off by fanatical Christians. In the cave were found clay figurines invoking the blessing of children and women pregnant or giving birth.

Antonis Vassilakis⁴ says of these cave sanctuaries; "They were cult places of the Minoan chthonic Mother Goddess together with the divine infant, who were worshipped on altars and in recesses, in cavities and fissures." These caves were places for connection with the Goddess of the underworld in all her aspects of Birth, Death and Rebirth. Our pilgrimage had led us to these places of deep mystery in the womb of the Mother Goddess, and had prepared us for the Journey from the underworld to our final destination on the very top of Mount Jucktas, that we shall explore in Part 2 of this article.

Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, Teresa Durrant and I started our quest for the Goddess in Eastern Central Crete by visiting a Minoan village at Vasiliki, a town at Gournia, the Museum at Agios Nikolaos, and the caves at Trapeza and Skoteino. Now we were to begin the second half of our journey to Knossos and down the valley of Arkhanes to our final destination on Mt. Juktas, the most sacred of Minoan Peak Sanctuaries.

Knossos is of course the most well-known and visited of all the Minoan palace- temples, and whole books have been written on its history and layout. We arrived early enough in the morning to avoid the coach loads and guided tours who would come later, and so were able to wander reasonably freely around the areas that are open to the public. This year (2006) marks the 100th anniversary of the excavations and reconstructions of Sir Arthur Evans at the site, and the visitor cannot help but be influenced by what he achieved, even if his interpretations of the site as the residential palace of a mythical 'King Minos' have now been discredited, and replaced with a view of it as a sacred temple with palatial quarters. It was developed and expanded by the Minoans from Middle Minoan IB to Middle Minoan II periods (1900-1650 BCE), destroyed by fire, rebuilt and occupied in the Late Minoan period (1650-1450 BCE) and finally occupied by mainland Myceneans in the Late Minoan ii-iiA (1450-1350 BCE) period. Even in Classical times (10thC BCE) the site continued to be the focus of worship with a sanctuary to Demeter, Goddess of the fruits of the earth, discovered on the lower slopes of the hill.

Many fine artifacts and ritual objects have been uncovered from Knossos, including the two famous Snake Goddesses or Priestesses, and there is a particular emphasis on double axe and horns of consecration inscriptions. Both of these motifs are found throughout Minoan art and buildings, and both were sacred symbols denoting aspects of Goddess worship and celebration. The horns of consecration were probably a sacred symbol to the Minoans of their bull cult, and are also often found in connection with nearby Peak Sanctuaries where the people went to worship the Goddess*. Here at Knossos there are some very fine horns in the central courtyard that align to the saddle hill of Mt. Jukt as in the distance, the place to where we were heading.

From Knossos we continued south towards the area of Arkhanes to visit a variety of other sites associated with the Minoan people. Firstly we followed signs to the cemetery site of Phourni on a hill NW of the village of Ano Arkhanes. The site was fenced and closed but we managed to find a way in, and were met by a well-excavated site of buildings and tombs that we explored with a growing sense of respect for the people who came here to lay their dead to rest. The tholos tombs, circular in form, were easily recognisable and have yielded some fascinating remains.

For example, Tholos Tomb A consisted of the burial of "a high ranking female who was also closely involved with cult practices"** which is a somewhat convoluted way of describing a Priestess! She was buried with pieces of gold jewellery, decorated bronze and clay vessels and the skull of a bull. In Tholos Tomb B several side chambers had been added, one with a pillar crypt, and finds included a spectacular gold ring depicting a Goddess and a griffin. In Tholos Tomb C were 45 burials (18 in the foetal position) and a rich array of grave goods, including 15 figurines of a Cycladic type, most of marble but also schist and quartz. Finds of pottery show that this tomb was in continual use for nearly 1000 years. Tholos Tomb D yielded evidence of one burial of a high-status woman with a bronze mirror near her face and other spectacular jewellery And Tholos Tomb E had a considerable number of burials and a great wealth of grave items.

We wandered around the site for some time, letting our minds connect with the spirits of the people who had come to use this site - ordinary people, Priestesses and perhaps Queens. It occurred to us that Phournia may have been the burial place for the people from Knossos, who would have walked along the valley floor from the Palace/Temple site in a sacred procession to lay their dead to rest here. There was certainly a very peaceful atmosphere here and we felt that the dead were very much revered and honoured at this place, as they were returned to the all-embracing, enfolding arms of the Goddess.

Cycladic style ivory Goddess figurine from Phournia cemetery

From Phournia we drove to the village of Kato Arkhanes and here had a strange experience, which by contrast was anything but peaceful. We were looking for the temple at Anemospilia but found unusually there were no signs to the site, but there were a large number of other signs everywhere in Greek with no English translation. By the time we had worked out the meaning of the Greek signs and taken several wrong turns, we were beginning to feel that perhaps the site did not want us to visit. However, while searching fruitlessly on one hillside, we met a couple from the Czech Republic, also searching for the site. So we put our heads together and with a little help from a Greek man at the nearby municipal rubbish tip, eventually located the site! It was situated on the side of a hill with dramatic views along the valley to the sea, but consisted of only three oblong rooms.

What makes this site so curious is that it seems to have been a real anomaly or 'breakaway' site in Minoan times. When it was excavated, human skeletons were found in the debris, and from the forensic evidence the archaeologists concluded that there were three people there who died together. One had been a youth, who appeared to have been sacrificed on the altar by two other people, a man and a woman. This human sacrifice is a very rare find, and something that is not found elsewhere at Minoan sites. At the moment of the sacrifice, a large earthquake struck the site (the same earthquake that had destroyed the old palace at Knossos) and it collapsed, killing the man and the woman as well! You could not have more dramatic evidence that the Goddess was displeased with the ritual of human sacrifice than that!

Perhaps it was auto-suggestion, but as we had entered the site I had a most uneasy feeling, and when we got to the rooms, it developed into the most physical gut- wrenching reaction you could imagine. Teresa took one look at me and said "Let's get out of here", so we quickly left the site to the Czech couple to make of it what they would! Later, I did some more research into the aspect of human sacrifice, and it The peaceful cemetery at Phournia

does not appear in the literature until much later in Olympian times, when the Gods of Greece had usurped the Goddess. Interestingly, there are references to Zeus receiving human sacrifice on Mount Likaion, a conical peak that rises above the plain of Megalopolis in central Arcadia. On Crete, Anemospilia similarly lies in the valley leading to Mount Jucktas which later also became known as the abode of Zeus. Could it be that the holy mountain peaks that were originally known as the place of the nurturing Goddess later became twisted under patriarchal belief into the place of the God Zeus who required human sacrifice?

Somewhat shaken by our experience at Anemospilia, we drove on towards our final destination - the mountain top sanctuary of Mt. Jucktas that we had glimpsed through the horns of consecration at Knossos. Mt. Jucktas was a place of pilgrimage for the Minoan people for more than a thousand years (from Early Minoan II to Early Minoan IIIB - 2500-1450 BCE). They must have walked here along the valley floor from Knossos carrying their gifts for the Goddess, and then made the climb up and up the side of the mountain to the Peak Sanctuary at the very top.

Today we drove part of the way and then walked the last section to the Shrine itself. Here we were 'on top of the world' at 2635ft/811 meters high, with stunning views across this eastern central part of the island. We entered the site, which consisted of slate rocks with many fissures in them. One of these fissures was a natural cave-like chasm, opening 30ft or so into the rock. It was here that the Minoan people had come to throw or pour their offerings to the Goddess. Nearby were the remains of buildings and enclosures linked to the site: on the west side of the cleft a stepped altar had been constructed, and next to it a large stone kernos, a cult vessel with depressions in it, used for offerings. A hoard of bronze double axes was found nearby, as well as rich finds of offerings and vessels for libations.

Cleft for ritual offerings on the top of Mt. Jucktas

We each of us took it in turns to stand at the chasm, make our prayer and dedication to the Goddess, and then throw down into the cleft our offerings in the time-honoured way. It was a moment of intense peace and ecstasy. This was the culmination of our journey that had taken us from the depths of the deepest sacred caves to the height of the highest Peak Sanctuary. Here we stood at the place that linked the two worlds together - the upper world of light and air, and the chasm leading down to the deep world of inner darkness, both realms the complementary and complete world of the Goddess. We had seen Her in the houses, the towns and the palaces of the Minoan peoples, and had experienced Her in the temples and sacred areas and in the caves and dark places, where She had taken back the dead and given love and hope to the living. Now on this highest point of Mt. Jucktas in the late afternoon light at the end of our pilgrimage, we reaffirmed our love for Her, and gave thanks for all Her sacred places of Crete that are still there for Goddess-celebrating people to find, and where we can all meet with Her once again, thousands of years after She was first celebrated here.

Our journey back took us south from Mt. Jucktas across the central plain towards Myrtos, and from there back to Irepetra, completing the circuit. Just to the east of Myrtos are two other Minoan sites, Pyrgos and Phournia Koryphi, that were featured and illustrated in Goddess Sites of Eastern Crete Pt 1 in GA6.

1 Most of these smaller lesser-known sites are well signposted but if they have no on-site guardian they are usually padlocked with no official way in. The choice is to seek out the local key-holder (a lengthy and uncertain process) or to effect an illegal entry! Most people seem to choose the latter course.

2 This had been noticed too by Vincent Scully in "The Earth, the Temple and the Gods" (Yale UP, 1979) where he described the hills as"the uplifted breasts of the Goddess of the horizon". He adds: "At Gournia one has the inescapable impression that human beings are conceived of as children who lie upon the mother's body, enclosed by her arms and in the deep shadow of her breasts."

Bibliography

Knossos - temple of the Goddess - Rodney Castleden (Efstathiadis Group, 1997)
Blue Guide to Crete - Pat Cameron (A & C Black, 2003)
Crete - Dr. Antonis Sp. Vassilakis (I.Mathioulakis & Co,)
Crete Reclaimed - Susan Evasdaughter (Heart of Albion Press, 1996)
A Cultural Guide to Ayios Stephahos & Makry Yialos - Nikos P. Papadakis (1986)
Ritual in the Bronze Age Aegean: the Minoan Peak Sanctuaries - Evengelos Kyriakdis (Duckworth 2005)
Minoan Religion - Nanno Marinatos (U of S. Carolina Press, 1975)
The Minoan Pantheon - Marina Moss (Bar International 1343, 2005)

ISSUE No. 9 - Spring/Summer 2006

Goddess Sites of Eastern Crete - Part 1

by Cheryl Straffon & Jackie Dash

Part 2

FROM SACRED CAVE TO MOUNTAIN SHRINE

Travels with the Goddess in Eastern Central Crete Part 1

by Cheryl Straffon

Part 2

Bibliography

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